Altered Faces - Le Quang Ha
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Transcript of Altered Faces - Le Quang Ha
ALTERED FACES 1
ALTERED FACESShireen Naziree
2 ALTERED FACES
Published 2008 byThavibu Gallery Co. Ltd.Silom Galleria, Suite 308919/1 Silom Road, Bangkok 10500, ThailandTel. (662) 266 5454, Fax. (662) 266 5455Email. [email protected], www.thavibu.com
Layout by Wanee Tipchindachaikul, Copydesk, ThailandPrinted by Amarin Printing and Publishing Public Company Limited, Thailand
Copyright Thavibu GalleryAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
ALTERED FACES 3
Thavibu Gallery has the pleasure to present the art exhibition Altered Faces by the Vietnamese artist Le Quang Ha.
He has over the last decade created some of the most interesting contemporary art in Vietnam, offering a personal
perspective on contemporary Vietnamese society. Thus this publication aims at profiling his new works, which will
be shown in the exhibition, in a wider context.
The text has been written by the art historian and independent curator Shireen Naziree. She has written extensively
on the contemporary art and culture of Southeast Asia and her curatorial practice has included working with some
of the region’s most important artists. She has served two terms on the Board of Trustees of the National Art Gallery
of Malaysia.
I take this opportunity to thank Le Quang Ha for his collaboration with Thavibu Gallery, and I thank Shireen Naziree
for her contribution.
I also thank Pham Long and Adrian Jones for their assistance and collectors for giving us access to their works.
FOREWORDJørn MiddelborgThavibu Gallery
4 ALTERED FACES
Portrait - Le Quang Ha
The reverie of romance and the applied
cliché generally associated with Vietnamese
artistic practice is certainly not part of Le
Quang Ha’s visual vocabulary. More critical
to his intentions is the associative power of
his art, which has been a crucial instrument
of his expression. Although Le Quang Ha
creates very rich visual worlds through his
paintings, his works require us to use our
imaginations in order to read into the
unnoticed worlds that are described. And it
is this leap of faith on behalf of the viewer
that adds to the richness of his art and allows
us to share in Le Quang Ha’s subjective and
often very potent descriptions.
For almost two decades, Le Quang Ha has
quietly produced one of the most coherent
and nuanced bodies of artwork in Vietnam.
Very singular and single-minded, Le Quang
Ha’s art has evolved through a practice that
provokes the tension between his own
individual concerns and social expectations.
He is noted for the extreme expressions that
upon introduction may appear as enigmatic
but instead within the richly worked layers
are statements and messages that ring out
as a result of the changing parameters of his
social environment.
Le Quang Ha has engaged himself with a
specific social context that raises questions
relating to the rapidly changing profiles of
traditional values that have been the essence
of society, not necessarily only in Vietnam
but also in most of Southeast Asia’s rapidly
developing economies.
Because art frames both critical and social
practice as well as questions of aesthetics,
emotion and human experience are dependent
on this framing to communicate meaning.
Inscribed within the Vietnamese history of
artistic expression is its own nostalgia for a
time when culture held a privileged place.
For Le Quang Ha, painting is understood as
a social practice with a critical function. Thus
he has embraced the loss of mainstream
cultural currency as a source of the new
realism that his society now has to negotiate
and from which he illustratively extracts his
pictorial language. His movement between
personal subjects and those that exist in the
public realm speaks of a practice that has
become fully social. This distinction in his art
suggests not so much attention to any form
of realism but to a way of dealing with
current history.
Le Quang Ha was born in 1963 in Hanoi.
Like many Vietnamese of his generation, he
was exposed to art from an early age and
in 1970 was enrolled at the Young Pioneers
Club, one of the many children’s art
institutions initiated by the Vietnamese
government under the auspices of the
Children’s Culture Palace at the time. Ha has
described his childhood as solitary. Unlike
most of his peers in Hanoi, he chose to
initially study art at the Ho Chi Minh City
Branch of the Hanoi University of Industrial
Fine Arts from 1986 until 1989. He eventually
enrolled at the Hanoi Industrial Arts College
from where he graduated in 1992. He
participated in his first exhibition while still
a student in Ho Chi Minh City in 1987 and
since then has participated in numerous
exhibitions in Vietnam and abroad.
The implementation of Doi Moi in 1986,
with its economic reforms that transformed
the socialist economy from rigid central
planning to an “open door” market orienta-
tion, signalled new developments for
Vietnamese contemporary art. The art of the
years preceding Doi Moi had been restricted
to socialist realism, which had left the art
scene somewhat impoverished and staid.
But with a renewed vigour, artists were once
again free to create artworks that would
be acceptable to a wider audience. From this
vantage, artists were able to look in several
altered faces
ALTERED FACES 5
different directions. For instance, they could
begin to examine and express the current
relationship between art and the social envi-
ronment. However, despite this liberalization
of policies, most artists chose not to intensify
such exchanges, flirting instead with nostalgia
the return of artistic genres that had been
displaced by the revolution. The success of
Vietnam in making a place for itself in the world
of art was firmly linked to showcasing such
idealism, attractive to Western audiences
with views of a romanticized past.
It was within this cultural milieu that Le
Quang Ha embarked on his artistic career.
Like many of his peers, the characteristics
of his art represented the typical array of
philosophical and literary standards. Visual
symphonies of beautiful women, amorous
couples engrossed in intimate conversation
and still life compositions richly embellished
with colour were nevertheless already more
nuanced than those of his contemporaries,
such as in Country Girl (1995). He was already
demonstrating the individuality of his
style. However, this lyrical language would
not last long, for soon Le Quang Ha’s aim
was to remove his art from the pedestal of
the stereotype in order to challenge percep-
tions that Vietnamese art was somehow
only embedded in the romance of a past
idealism. His return to content meant that
his art could provide an extremely effective
platform for social views that would other-
wise go unheard in other circumstances.
In Power (1996), his keen observation of
society resides not in the nostalgia of the
past but in the new realism that would have
to be negotiated.
With a curious mixture of views that com-
bined radical egalitarianism with his concerns
for the mysticism of his Vietnamese heritage
and his mission to cleanse society through
his art, he was actually creating a situation
in which contemporary art became a vehicle
of critique. This return to content placed
his art closely parallel to that of other artists
practicing in the larger global arena even
though his actual means of expression were
very different from those who assumed a
moralist stance largely due to their own self
censorship. Le Quang Ha’s desire to shock
and possibly to destabilize the established
order was a gradual slide from one dimen-
Country Girl, 1995Oil on canvas
Power, 1996Oil on canvas80 x 310 cm
and the romance of their cultural past. Layers
of Vietnam’s rich cultural history and the
French colonial experience appear to be part
of the reason for this nostalgia and sentiment.
What changed the artistic landscape was
6 ALTERED FACES
sion to another. His early works were not
necessarily shocking for their actual content,
but rather for the way in which they chal-
lenged established ways of seeing. In his
understanding, art meant acknowledging
the multiple perspectives of his subjects,
whether formally, spiritually or socio-politi-
cally, and importantly acknowledging that
everybody has his or her own interpretation
of truth.
This acknowledgement led to the question-
ing of the nature and identity of Le Quang
Ha’s art. As powerful as it was, it was also
problematic for those holding the cultural
batons of power, for art becomes political
when it intertwines with social relations,
The Pianist, 2002Oil on canvas123 x 153 cm
culturally accepted subject and the achieve-
ment of deep content. Another relationship
present in Le Quang Ha’s art is the way his
subjects subvert the exterior narratives that
surround them and endeavour to circumsc-
ribe them. At times the fluidity of meaning
makes it notoriously difficult to pin him
down to any particular critical discourse, as
he demonstrates in his painting The Pianist
(2002). This is an example of the way in
which societies avoid or gloss over issues
that it is really their responsibility to question.
It is from this vantage that Le Quang Ha
examines the relationship between politics
and contemporary art.
Self-Portrait, 1999Oil on canvas40 x 50 cm
economics and a wide range of related
issues. However, Le Quang Ha refutes
suggestions that his art is political and offers
an antidote to the literalness of his art,
which is really about extending the identity
beyond the ego to other levels of transper-
sonal approach. Every artist feels more
satisfied with certain choices in that he or
she paints for the sheer pleasure of it, remain-
ing unselfconscious and unapologetic.
While his works transcend the tradition and
culture to which they belong, his grammar
stands out even more in contrast with other
artists, particularly of his generation, working
within traditional psychological conventions
and allowing for a distinction between a
ALTERED FACES 7
In Le Quang Ha’s art, there is always an
unexpected link between his assertion of
emotional statements and the figurative.
There is often a tendency amongst painters
searching the ideal, but Le Quang Ha enjoys
making paintings of people that are certainly
not idealized in the conventional sense.
As in all his paintings, he exereises a deliber-
ate imagery in a satirical rather than in a
nostalgic manner, which are often executed
through the meticulous layering process of
traditional lacquer painting. And what results
are images that relate to various moods or
states of mind of his subjects. Like many of
his paintings Lady Blue (2006) mirrors a social
context, in this instance authority and domi-
nance. He believes in capturing his subjects in
a natural state which allows him to penetrate
the personality’s deceptive surface. His ability
to peel back this surface in order to reveal
representations of reality is further articulated
in Lady Lust (2006) (p.23) and in Lady Vixen
(2005) (p.23) through which he emphasizes
the changing perspectives and wants of his
society through the alterations of military
and official dress as well as the demeanor of
his subjects in present day Vietnam.
Although the effects of his works are far from
straightforward, at times there is a recurring
craving and fear of isolation throughout,
whether in the messages that ring out from
his solitary figures or from the enigmatic
signs within his paintings. Self-Portrait (1999)
is an example. But somehow the more Le
Quang Ha varies his work, the more the
really unusual and unsettling consistency of
his work becomes apparent.
Lady Blue, 2006Lacquer and dyes on board
80 x 100 cm
Hang, 1995Oil on canvas
60 x 80 cm
Le Quang Ha views the rapidly changing
socio-economic climate of Vietnam as crucial
for understanding the nature of artistic
debates due to the connection between
cultural and ideological positions that have
little place within the new order of society.
Maybe it is for this purpose that he cites
Picasso as one of his artistic heroes. Hang,
a painting that was executed in 1995, is
characteristic of this admiration, although
the painting clearly expresses the artist’s
own statement that is steeped within his
own Vietnamese identity. Another hero is
Francis Bacon, known for his austere, bold
and often grotesque imagery. While his art
might draw parallels with that of Bacon,
Le Quang Ha’s model of “realism” is clearly
focused upon a sense of contingency embod-
ied within an evidently painterly process.
Although clearly one of Vietnam’s most pro-
filed artists, Le Quang Ha does not attest to
such a status. Anyone who knows Le Quang
Ha mainly from his art or the generalized
perception of an impetuous eccentric may
be surprised by his degree of focus upon
his memorable way of observing humanity
and the world around him. Whereas in his
earlier works, he was seeking to define
some underlying theme of an oeuvre, his
meanderings around the rich reflections of
life have resulted in art that treats the rawest
instincts of humanity as worthy of endless
reflection about life experience. Perhaps it
takes a more relaxed space beyond the
restrictive urgencies to appreciate and under-
stand his truly monumental art.
8 ALTERED FACES
altered faces
Le Quang Ha actively straddles two very
different disciplines in his artistic practice.
At one end are his paintings on canvas in
which he expresses vibrant, articulate and
modernist colour effects, often rejecting
academic contouring in favour of bold
strokes that show strong parallels to Western
contemporary art practices. At the other
end, there is the traditional Vietnamese art
form of lacquer painting that is embedded
in centuries-old history, but made contem-
porary by 20th century artists such as Nguyen
Gia Tri (1908 -1993) and which has become
a hallmark of Vietnamese contemporary
art. These are two distinct fields of intensely
artistic discipline, which Le Quang Ha has
managed to balance without losing sight of
his larger aesthetic vision. He does this by
maintaining conscious boundaries between
these two disciplines. For Ha, there is no
contest between working with oils or with
lacquer. The ability to change media at will
and according to idea and circumstances is
considered liberating. Nevertheless, this
dialectic has shaded into a cross-fertilization.
Painting on canvas is a certainty, whereas
the organic applications of lacquer painting
depend on a series of complex layering in
order to pin down either the literal or the
raw information so as to reshuffle and bring
into line the more complex realities of
picture making – a practice that he has
mastered as displayed in his lacquer
paintings. In lesser hands, such adaptation
could tend to compromise lacquer’s innate
strengths. The importance of Le Quang Ha
as a contemporary example lies in his
simultaneous adoption of both media and
his refusal to grant either a monopoly on
his representation of truth.
Although this privileging of narrative might
be deliberate, Le Quang Ha does not concern
himself with it consciously, for what matters
are the energy and the expediency that are
The Three New Abundances, 2006Mixed mediaHeight 70 cm
ALTERED FACES 9
The Spokesman, 2001Mixed mediaHeight 175 cm
embedded in his pursuit for aesthetic inde-
pendence from context. As he explains, “My
art does not originate out of any angst or
anger. I am inspired by the life that evolves
around me.” This degree of freedom allows
him to keep his mind clear so as to develop
other aesthetic forms, such as sculpture.
While The Three New Abundances (2006)
could be perceived to carry a political
message, they are better termed as social
sculptures that refer to the Vietnamese
tradition of belief and worship of the three
abundances: happiness, wealth and longevity.
Though his expression is surprisingly telling,
what is clear is that Le Quang Ha possesses
both an extraordinary degree of skill and
an acute sense of what is expressive and
dramatic. Generally, he works with found
objects collected from “rag-and-bone men”
and from industrial garbage. With these
objects, which once had a life of their own
and are no longer of use to society, he draws
parallels with cultural icons of the past that
have also become without value. Le Quang
Ha loves to infuse his works with a sense of
humour that is visible in both The Three
Abundances as well as The Spokesman
(2001) a life-size figure that is programmed
with audio-visual equipment, thus implying
the notion that a person speaks with others’
words. To add to the construction of this
narrative, Le Quang Ha used The Spokesman
to inaugurate and deliver a speech at one
of his exhibitions in Hanoi.
As much as Le Quang Ha’s work represents
an important contribution to Vietnamese
contemporary art, we need to understand
1 0 ALTERED FACES
Ten Years After, 2001Oil on canvas125 x 155 cm
the meaning of the play of cultural icons in
his current practice lest these icons of reality
that remain within the circuit of Vietnamese
socio-cultural exchange be perceived merely
as vulgarity or vandalism. Dai Can 2 (2005)
is typical and central to such understanding.
By portraying the iconic Mona Lisa as a Com-
munist official, he pushes the idea that art
can be radical and entertaining at the same
time. This desire to heighten the tension
between the political and rhetorical signifi-
cance of his images and icons is evident
Dai Can 2, 2005Oil on canvas90 x 110 cm
ALTERED FACES 1 1
throughout Le Quang Ha’s work, although
it is embedded in an investigation of the
consequences of global capitalism and its
effects on traditional Vietnamese values.
Le Quang Ha is very much a son of Hanoi
and views his city as more than a place in
space. He takes note of the continuing
narratives and the drama that constantly
unfold within this contemporary metropolis.
This cluster of activity is interesting because
it reflects the broader revival of questions
concerning cultural values and aesthetics
that had been occurring for a very long
time, particularly in Hanoi, a city renowned
as a cultural capital of Southeast Asia. Ten
Years After (2001) is a portrait of himself
and his wife poignantly set against a back-
drop of Hanoi, reminiscent of Bui Xuan
Phai’s (1920 - 1988) romantic renderings of
the streets of old Hanoi.
This dynamic inevitably has propelled him
to consider whether the economic forces
that have allowed for such blossoming have
also resulted in the continuing burgeoning
of a new wave of economic pioneers. These
individuals have become pertinent to the
rapidly changing social environment of
Hanoi, for humanity does not reside in the
new grids of the city but in culture where
their voices can be heard. In Opera (2003),
Le Quang Ha sways between the rich history
of Vietnam with its strong link to cultural
presentations and the idea of the uncom-
Opera, 2003Oil on canvas200 x 240 cm
1 2 ALTERED FACES
No God - This is My Land, 2007Oil on canvas155 x 195 cm
ALTERED FACES 1 3
promising perceptions that continue to
linger in social modernity.
For Le Quang Ha, this concern is bound up
with making his art speak of his world and
his history, which are grounded in Hanoi.
In No God - This is My Land (2007), he con-
siders the contrasts between the socialist
resonance of authority and individual
choices. The general pace of the painting
is grounded in the raw energy of the
narrative. Typically crass officials with the
Statue of Liberty perched on the back of
a motorbike speed through the streets of
a dark Hanoi. The contrast of the clear blue
sky makes the message dense and opaque
in terms of political theory.
In Our Sky is Not Blue (1997), Le Quang Ha
indicates resonances of social discontent
by exploring the relationship between con-
sciousness and the new social environment.
He makes a good case for alignment with
the struggles and unbalanced liberalism
that have resulted from the dominant
power of authority. While there might be
some debate about such abstraction and
the relationship between the privileged
and the silent majority, in this instance the
blankness of the orange sky does not signify
absence but is rather a gesture made more
dramatic by threatening the viewer to
experience the same discomfort.
Our Sky is Not Blue, 1997Oil on canvas110 x 125 cm
1 4 ALTERED FACES
Dai Can 3, 2005Oil on canvas90 x 110 cm
Many of Le Quang Ha’s works appear to
address the general penchant for acquiring
wealth and the hidden links that weave
the superficial composites needed for the
implementation of power. Although many
struggle to escape this polarization, objec-
tively speaking it is not always possible.
Seeing his world in terms of such a climate
created by the ideological position of power
has resulted in disparity and discontent.
Outrage, as in The Dogs (2005), enters Le
Quang Ha’s objective obliquely, as if un-
leashed through the recognition of the
repression that lurks in the background as
the corrupted are soothed by money. This
strain of realism may be streamlined, but
is vividly pictorial as the icons repeat the
mselves continuously, as in Dai Can 3 (2005).
ALTERED FACES 1 5
The Dogs, 2005Oil on canvas
155 x 1195 cm
1 6 ALTERED FACES
Terrorists or Terrorized?, 2002Oil on canvas155 x 195 cm
ALTERED FACES 1 7
The political engagement of contemporary
art has been intense in eyeing the global
wars, terrorism and geopolitical crises that
have affected our modern history. Le Quang
Ha sees these events as crucial to under-
standing the nature of artistic debate due to
the influence of such phenomena on his
own cultural position. Terrorists or Terrorized?
(2002) is an earnest visual essay of human
nature and the human possibilities of
mechanization with its desire to remain out
of sight rather than test the boundaries of
free speech. His visual text here is both subtly
allusive and not easily transferable.
Le Quang Ha constantly mines Vietnamese
contemporary life and revels in the uncanny
and grotesque, which he serves up with
unmistakably apocalyptic overtones. Flying
(2006) is a representation with a satirical
edge that incorporates a number of familiar
memories of Vietnam’s stormy modern history.
Flying, 2006Oil on canvas200 x 240 cm
1 8 ALTERED FACES
In all his works, Le Quang Ha toys with
our need to take notice of the underlying
tensions of society. Discovering the organiz-
ing details becomes an absorbing game.
Rarely subtle, his aesthetic underscores the
fact that taxonomies can be subtle and
subjective. The bright surfaces of the painted
images belie their hidden messages, allowing
them to work their way into the viewer’s
consciousness. The tone in The Dictator 3
(2004/7) is both powerful and distinctive.
Le Quang Ha has ruthlessly observed the
exploitive mannerisms of a propagandist. The
masked face, the clenched fist and the light
bulb are images that bring out the deeper
ideological implications of his subject.
Le Quang Ha is careful to avoid the pitfalls
that commonly cloy sentimentalism and fac-
tual didacticism by negotiating relationships
between a rich cultural past and an identity
that represents modern economic power.
Police 1, Police 4 and Police 5 (2007) are
lacquer paintings that relate to those shifting
cultural conditions. By adapting a contem-
porary narrative, he has desentimentalized
the emotional pitch of this art form that is
the epitome of traditional Vietnamese artistic
values. Where once the boundaries between
painting on canvas and lacquer painting
were rigid, they now exist at either end of
a non-hierarchical axis on which his narrative
can variously overlap and merge, resulting in
contrasting qualities.The Dictator 3, 2004/7Oil on canvas110 x 125 cm
ALTERED FACES 1 9
Police 1, 2007 Lacquer and dyes on board 80 x 100 cm
2 0 ALTERED FACES
Police 4, 2007 Lacquer and dyes on board 80 x 100 cm
ALTERED FACES 2 1
Police 5, 2007 Lacquer and dyes on board 80 x 100 cm
2 2 ALTERED FACES
Police Taking a Shit, 2007 Lacquer and dyes on board 80 x 100 cm
ALTERED FACES 2 3
Lady Lust, 2006Lacquer and dyes on board
80 x 100 cm
Lady Vixen, 2005Lacquer and dyes on board
80 x 100 cm
2 4 ALTERED FACES
These studies have a robust counterpart in
Police Taking a Shit (2007) where there is
also a liberating rejection of realism.
Le Quang Ha reframes his subject in this
series at will according to circumstance and
non-conformist intelligence, thus avoiding
image fatigue by emphasizing the mechani-
cal nature in which low-ranking authorities
exercise their duties. Gangster (2004) is
another protest directed at his contemporary
environment, showing that his art is able to
speak across the barriers of knowledge direct-
ly to people about their lives. In many ways,
this series of images represents a parallel
reality to his own experiences. It is from this
parallel world that he has constructed a
contemporary language of transformation
and fragmentation.
Le Quang Ha’s experiences have been bound
together by his socio-political history and the
common currency that makes his lacquer
paintings unique in the broader considera-
tions of art. Along with his non-conformist
intelligence and his artistic practice that
ranges over diverse cultural contexts, Ha has
set up an unavoidable tension that may be
interpreted either as liberation or as forced
internment.Gangster, 2004Lacquer and dyes on board80 x 100 cm
ALTERED FACES 2 5
Prison 3 (1997), a three-dimensional work,
offers a credible explanation of his personal
journey. Confrontational and dramatic, this
shift is symptomatic of the obvious encoun-
ters he has experienced during the course
of his career. With a sophisticated grasp of
the relationship between his practice and his
humanitarian passions, his meticulously
thought-out narrative is typically circum-
scribed in a restrictive environment replete
with iron barred windows. This is a rhetorical
device in the service of interpretation; it
acts not only to frame the conditions of his
experience but in helping the viewer to
look and see as well.
Prison 3, 1997Oil on canvas mounted in a wooden box
64 x 77 x 10 cm
2 6 ALTERED FACES
Sexual Power, 1998Oil on canvas110 x 125 cm
ALTERED FACES 2 7
But while the artist remains committed to
bearing witness to the political and social
costs of dependency, his art is simultaneously
shadowed by an anxiety and a need to
place himself in the frame, as exemplified
in Prison 3, but more explicitly in Sexual
Power (1998). This voluptuously structured
arrangement of overlapping body parts is
a suggestion of his ironic humour and a very
specific illustration of his sense of his own
sexuality. Essentially, Le Quang Ha has inte-
grated traditional figurative art with many
of the new basic intellectual ideas of
modern art movements. But in conservative
Vietnam, the nature of his art is still widely
misunderstood and difficult to grasp.
End of the Party (1998) shares the same
fundamental qualities, though his attitude
to this source of material has obviously been
filtered to include his own experiences once
again. Le Quang Ha’s construction of a party
scene allows a large space for ambiguous
elements. He invites the viewer into a world
of hedonistic excess and in the same vein
he stresses a world of harsh reality that is
tinged with a certain melancholy. As is the
case when we view other of his paintings,
we are conscious of the extreme complexity
of his own personality and a personal
vulnerability.
End of the Party, 1998Oil on canvas60 x 160 cm (triptych)
2 8 ALTERED FACES
Visitor, 2004Lacquer and dyes on board30 x 40 cm
Big Mouth, 2004Lacquer and dyes on board30 x 40 cm
The Official, 2004Lacquer and dyes on board30 x 40 cm
Culture Producer, 2004Lacquer and dyes on board30 x 40 cm
Lady in Blue, 2004Lacquer and dyes on board30 x 40 cm
Ech, 2007Lacquer and dyes on board30 x 40 cm
ALTERED FACES 2 9
Dang Xuan Hoa, 2007Pencil on paper26 x 38 cm
Portraiture is one of the most powerful
art forms in the history of Western art. Le
Quang Ha readily gives form to the emotio-
nal states of his portraits through the allegory
of physical experience. In the series of
portraits for Altered Faces he has examined
his subjects with both humour and grace.
Visitor (2004) is a portrait in lacquer of a
traditional Vietnamese woman from the
countryside. He combines strong pigment
with emphasis on the woman’s typically
blackened teeth, traditional headgear and
unexpected sunglasses. The physical presence
in The Official (2004) is less literal but more
mysterious. Fearlessness and perversity come
together in his portraits. In Big Mouth
(2004), manic attention to detail and person-
alization underwrites his observations on
the people who impact his culture. The
expressive facial gestures of Culture Producer
(2004) situate his palette in a framework
that is defined by an often eccentric render-
ing of specific features with disturbing and
cynical overtones. His palette is so strong
that we can almost hear him talk.
At an opposite end, Ech (2007) and Lady
in Blue (2004) are both presented as finely
rendered portraits, which may seem as
straight forward depictions at first. However,
the monotones in Ech, and the muted tones
and the gentler strokes of Lady in Blue lend
each of these lacquer paintings a very
different personality: The stillness in Ech
relates to a strong personality, whereas Lady
in Blue reflects a softer and gentler tone,
filled with melancholy. But what remains
clear is Le Quang Ha’s ability to capture the
deeper essence of his subject and interpret
it with a deeply felt understanding. A similar
dimension of understanding and observa-
tion is seen in the portrait drawing of the
artist Dang Xuan Hoa (2007) whose quiet
and calm spirit became the visual analogue
of their friendship.
3 0 ALTERED FACES
Dreaming, 1999Lacquer and dyes on board80 x 100 cm
Art for Le Quang Ha is a tradition to be ques-
tioned and explored as part of an exercise
in self-definition. As is the case for artists
who work across different artistic disciplines,
his challenge is to make art that is at once
both deeply personal and broadly meaning-
ful while addressing the issues and experiences
of the different worlds he lives in.
ALTERED FACES 3 1
Desire, 2003Oil on canvas80 x 100 cm
Le Quang Ha’s work is often rife with classical
allusions. Dreaming (1999) is a study of a
nude, voluptuous in its physical experience.
His use of thick and vibrant brushstrokes em-
phasizes her rubbery flesh. In Desire (2003)
the mood is different. This time round, the
focus is on the model’s nimble skeleton. Her
body is full of life and shares some of the
same defiance as the artist does in his own
ideology.
3 2 ALTERED FACES
Ech: Faraway in Thoughts, 2007Pencil on paper26 x 38 cm
Ech: You Cannot Fly Away, 2007Pencil on paper26 x 38 cm
Ech: In Repose, 2007Pencil on paper26 x 38 cm
Ech: A Heart’s Desire, 2007Pencil on paper26 x 38 cm
ALTERED FACES 3 3
This relationship between the body and the
unconscious demonstrates how the body
itself experiences emotion and the liberating
power of imagination. In another series of
nude drawings, Le Quang Ha once again
casts a sharp eye and is particularly good
at capturing the emotional essence of his
subject. The model’s pensive gaze in Ech:
Faraway in Thoughts (2007) is an example
of his association with the vitality of life.
Ech: In Repose (2007) is another example of
his gestural expressionism, whereas Ech:
A Heart’s Desire (2007) is a slightly more
vigorous and spontaneous depiction that
exudes a freshness and spontaneity when
compared to traditional academic nude
studies.
As a response to his ongoing fervent com-
mentary on contemporary society, he has
commented that “the greatest forces in life
are love and fear” and “I am always looking
at each individual with the eager hope
of finding there something of the dignity
of life.” In Ech: You Cannot Fly Away (2007),
Le Quang Ha once again challenges the
social terms of Vietnamese contemporary
society in that he underlines control and
dominance over society, as suggested by the
mechanical wings and the downward glance
of the model.
Le Quang Ha has his roots in Vietnam, a
world that is changing dramatically. His
work operates in a unique and metapho-
rical space fraught with the tensions and
contradictions that characterize developing
nations today. By not denying the importance
of being Vietnamese nor confining himself
to the stereotype, Le Quang Ha resists
definition. His ambivalence and occasional
scepticism further complicate any easy
reading of his work. But each of his artworks
offers us a unique way of looking at his
world, one that is deeply felt through his
visually moving works of art that are as
provocative as they are engaging.
3 4 ALTERED FACES
Le Quang HaBorn 1963 in Hanoi
1986 - 89: Ho Chi Minh City Branch of Hanoi Industrial Fine Arts University
1989 - 92: Hanoi Industrial Fine Arts University
BA from Hanoi Industrial Fine Arts University
Member of Vietnam Fine Arts Association
SELECTED ART EXHIBITIONSSELECTED ART EXHIBITIONSSELECTED ART EXHIBITIONSSELECTED ART EXHIBITIONSSELECTED ART EXHIBITIONS
1987: - National Exhibition of Young Painters - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
1990-91: - Fine Art Exhibitions in Hanoi, Vietnam
chronology
Photo by Le Nhat Khanh
ALTERED FACES 3 5
1992: - Group Show of Young Painters in Berlin, Germany
- Group Show of Ten Vietnamese Painters at the French Cultural Centre - Hanoi, Vietnam
- Bronze medal at Hanoi Fine Arts Association Exhibition
1993: - Group Show in Beijing, China
- Bronze medal at Hanoi Fine Arts Association Exhibition
1994: - Group Show: War and Revolution at the National Fine Arts Exhibition
- Bronze medal at Hanoi Fine Arts Association Exhibition
1995: - Solo Show at Galerie Vinh Loi - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Silver medal at Vietnamese Fine Arts Association Exhibition
1996: - Group Show - Zurich, Switzerland
- Group Show - Berlin, Germany
1997: - Group Show: The Changing Face of Hanoi - Hong Kong
- Group Show - Berlin, Germany
- Rencontre with Olivier Passieux - Hanoi, Vietnam
1998: - Group Shows in New York, Boston and California, USA
- Group Show at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum - Fukuoka, Japan
1999: - Group Show - Seoul, Korea
- Group Show - Boston, USA
2000: - Second Prize Winner in the National Fine Arts Exhibition
2001: - Solo Show in the Vietnam Fine Art Museum - Hanoi, Vietnam
- Group Show - Zug, Switzerland
- Represented Vietnam at the ASEAN Art Awards - Bali, Indonesia
2002: - Launched website www.lequangha.com
2004: - Solo Show: Le Quang Ha at L’Espace - Hanoi, Vietnam
- Group Show in at Hotel Arte - Olten, Switzerland
2005: - Group Show: The Ten Courts of the Kings of Hell, Vietnam Past and Present at Bankside Gallery - London, UK
2006: - Group Show at the Fielding-Lecht Gallery - Austin, Texas, USA
2008: - Solo Show: Altered Faces at Thavibu Gallery - Bangkok, Thailand
Le Quang Ha lives with his wife and two sons in Hanoi.
MUSEUM COLLECTIONSMUSEUM COLLECTIONSMUSEUM COLLECTIONSMUSEUM COLLECTIONSMUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Singapore Art Museum
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan